Bolt's Minority View

Some people believe that bushfires may get worse in the future because of man-made global warming.

Andrew Bolt isn't one of them.

Dryness as usualAndrew BoltTHE merchants of global warming panic are wrong. Again.No, this is not the worst drought ever recorded. No, it is not so unprecedented that it proves man-made global warming is real.

— Herald Sun, Dryness as usual, 27th October, 2006

Climate change sceptics have long had a voice in Rupert Murdoch's papers.

But the times, well they are a changing.

Winds of changeTim BlairRupert Murdoch's News Corporation empire is home to many global warming sceptics, but their ranks may thin following Murdoch's five-day "Imagining the Future" talkfest at the Pebble Beach resort in California. It might be remembered as the moment News went green.

— The Bulletin, Winds of change, 22nd August, 2006

And there's evidence.

New Ltd's London Sun, which was notoriously anti-greenhouse, has sniffed the wind.

Well savedToo many of us have spent too long in denial over the threat from global warming.

The evidence is now irresistible…

— The Sun (UK), 11th September, 2006

But Andrew Bolt is still resisting the prophets of doom - even at Pebble Beach.

…former US vice president Al Gore… presented his enviro-alarm film An Inconvenient Truth…Melbourne Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt … began to attack claims made by Gore in his film. Soon, according to one onlooker, the pair were involved in "a full-on barney". Gore ended up shouting at Bolt. "It was brilliant," says one onlooker. "Embarrassing," recalls another.

— The Bulletin, Winds of change, 22nd August, 2006

Andrew Bolt isn't easily embarrassed and a few weeks later this appeared in the Herald Sun.

Bulled by a GoreAndrew Bolt

— Herald Sun, Bulled by a Gore, 13th September, 2006

Bolt argues that man-made global warming is more cult than science.

Are even our scientists too gripped by this end-of-the-world religion of man-made warming to dare point out Gore's documentary contains exaggerations, half-truths and falsehoods?

— Herald Sun, Bulled by a Gore, 13th September, 2006

A rhetorical question to which Andrew knows the answer.

He sets out ten points to make his case.

This is the first.

1: Gore claims that a survey of 928 scientific articles on global warming showed not one disputed that man's gasses were mostly to blame for rising global temperatures… Dr Benny Peiser, from Liverpool John Moores University …checked again and found just 13 of those 928 papers explicitly endorsed man-made global warming, and 34 rejected or doubted it. The debate is real.

— Herald Sun, Bulled by a Gore, 13th September, 2006

This is the article in the journal, "Science", that Al Gore relied on.

The Scientific Consensus on Climate ChangeNaomi OreskesPoliticians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect…there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change.

Oreskes examined a random sample of 928 peer reviewed scientific articles, but didn't find any that questioned the reality of man-made climate change.

By contrast, a survey of US newspapers found that half the news reports gave weight to the sceptics.

A social anthropologist Benny Peiser wrote to Science challenging Oreskes analysis.

The results of my analysis contradict Oreskes' findings and essentially falsify her study: Of all 1117 abstracts, only 13 (1%) explicitly endorse the 'consensus view'. However, 34 abstracts reject or question the view that human activities are the main driving force of "the observed warming over the last 50 years".

That's the research that Andrew Bolt relied on for his article and it would be damning stuff - if it were true.

In fact over the last year and half since Benny Peiser wrote up his results, he's backed away from those claims.

Peiser now admits he didn't check the same articles that Naomi Oreskes used.

Which is why I no longer maintain this particular criticism. In addition, some of the abstracts that I included in the 34 "reject or doubt" category are very ambiguous and should not have been included.

Whatever nuance you may now have uncovered to criticise this list, the basic fact remains as this reveals: When Gore suggests there is absolutely no scientific debate on man-made global warming he is not telling the truth.

There will never be absolute agreement. Peisers still sceptical, but even he says there's an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is caused by human activity.

I do not think anyone is questioning that we are in a period of global warming. Neither do I doubt that the overwhelming majority of climatologists is agreed that the current warming period is mostly due to human impact.